Why the Two State Solution Won't work

I have friends (yes, even I). Many, probably most of these friends believe that the best way to resolve the Mid-East conflict is with a two state solution, Israel and Palestine (consisting of the West Bank, Gaza and Arab Jerusalem).

Let us examine this possibility. There are three problems with it—West Bank access to Israel proper; connecting the West Bank to Gaza; and the grandmother-of-the-mother-of-difficulties, Jerusalem.

The two state solution assumes that Israel will have defensible borders even without natural frontiers other than the unnatural security fence separating the West Bank from Israel to prevent dissatisfied jihadists or other fanatics from crossing it and blowing up (insert here the name of a civilian meeting place—a bus, a sidewalk café, a synagogue) after making a touching farewell tape. This is a normally one-way street. Yes we hang our heads in shame when we remember Baruch Goldstein, but his slaughter of the innocents was by a lone murderer. People who cross the Green Line and blow up pizzerias are mentored, trained, equipped and filmed before they go. They become heroes (and occasionally heroines). If there is a Hell I have no doubt that our Goldstein is trying to strangle their Ahmed as the remnants of Ahmed (don’t forget, he’s been blown to smithereens on a cross-walk in Jerusalem) tries to stab the bad doctor. Poor Goldstein, alone in Hell with 500 Ahmeds. Well, it serves him right.

Gaza as part of this proposed Palestinian state, separated by Israel from the West Bank by about 25 miles, means that Palestine would surround Israel with potentially hostile and (I imagine) frequently actual, enemy action by those who believe in a one Arab state solution. That’s the bad news for Israel. From the Arab side, the West Bank presumably would be Palestine central, Gaza the proverbial step-child.

When it achieved its independence, India was divided into Hindu and Muslim areas—but the Muslims were in the Northwest and the Northeast so Pakistan became a country separated by India, its enemy; the area that became Bangladesh was untenable. It declared its independence and is untenable still. Look to Poland which, following the Great War, separated the bulk of Germany in the west from East Prussia to the east. When war came again it was attacked on both fronts, the pincers having been put in place by the diplomats of Versailles in their attempt at fairness. Either way, bifurcated Palestine will not survive and surrounded Israel never rest easy. A solution to the problem (for the Arabs) would be a raised highway across 50 kilometers of Israel. Arab traffic above would flow east to west, Israeli traffic below from north to south. Who would pay for construction, maintenance and police remains to be seen. It’s not going to happen, and it shouldn’t. Gaza would be the new Bangladesh. Israel would be the new 1939 Poland. The plan presupposes men of good will on both sides. Who amongst you trusts Hamas or Hezbollah not to try for a one-state Arab solution? Seeing no hands, we’ll proceed. The only historical model I can think of where a country divided by another has survived is us. Canada separates the lower 48 from Alaska, but we’ve been friendly with Canada ever since “Fifty-four forty or fight” morphed into “OK, the 49th parallel is good enough.” I’m not picturing a squadron of blood-thirsty Royal Canadian Mounted Police invading Alaska for its oil, or the United States launching a two pronged invasion to conquer British Columbia. There is good faith and cooperation on both sides.

As to Jerusalem, well, on the one hand it’s just a city which has road and sewer and lighting and school issues to resolve like any other municipality. The problem is that this particular city is JERUSALEM, FOR GOD’S SAKES! When the United Nations partitioned Palestine Jerusalem was designated an international city. When the British withdrew the Jordanians tried to grab it; the Jews fought to keep the road to it open, and the city was divided. The Jordanians got the holy places until Israel conquered it in 1967. In the 2000 near-peace agreement brokered by President Clinton, Ehud Barak offered Palestinians control over East Jerusalem, including most of the Old City and “Religious Sovereignty” over the Temple Mount, and the West Bank and Gaza. The offer was rejected. The Second Intifada irrupted.

A hopeless situation? Well, maybe, but I have a solution that might work. Read about it in my next column.

The crocodile and the scorpion

There’s an old joke. It’s not very funny, but it is hoary with age, and so has become a cliché. A scorpion asks a crocodile to let him ride on his back across the Nile. “But if I carry you, mid-way across you’ll bite me and I’ll die,” responded the worried Crocodylus niloticus. “Not to fear, if I bite you mid-way across, we both die, so I won’t.” This appears to be a convincing argument. But mid-way across the scorpion stings the crock in the back. The dying lizard turns to the venomous betrayer and says, “Why did you do that? Now we’ll both die,” to which the scorpion replies just before it drowns, “well, that’s Africa.”

Because of an early deadline I don’t know how the current Israeli offensive against Hamas will turn out. But this I do know—its hatred for Jews is a cancer that can neither be contained nor eliminated, which in fact metastasizes proportionately to the efforts of Israel to excise it (or, to switch my metaphor yet again, it’s hydra-like—whenever Israel cuts off one head, two grow in its place). But what else can Israel do? It pulled out of Gaza and instead of peace it got Hamas.

Some pro-Israeli doves argue that Israel ought to moderate its counter-attack. For example: Diane Balser, executive director of Brit Tzedek intones, “We can already anticipate that this incursion will be yet another failed attempt to resolve this fundamentally political conflict by military means. It is high time to break with this cycle; only through serious and sustained international diplomacy can the problems with Hamas and Gaza be resolved.”

Such organizations are to be commended for their consistency, but none recognize the nature of the beast with which it is trying to reconcile. Hamas does not recognize the despised State of Israel and sees no option other than to continue its struggle to the death by any means possible. If that requires putting its headquarters in the middle of a civilian population of innocent Arabs so be it. The more televised martyrs the better. If it means attacking Israel indiscriminately and waiting for the inevitable retaliation so that it can cry “foul!” and have its world-wide community of sycophants take to the streets, hurling stones and vituperation, urging vendetta, bring it on! The pictures we see on television of civilian suffering are perfect for Hamas. “Look what the Jews do to us, we must get revenge,” is the war-cry taken up around the world. An intifada is to be expected; indeed, it’s been prophesized by Hamas.

Israel’s foreign minister Tzipi Livni also misses the point when in an interview with al-Jazeera she urges Arab governments to stop Hamas’ attacks because they are injurious to the Palestinians of Gaza; she ignores the volatility of the Arab Street.

Negotiation with Hamas is like the crocodile’s discussion with the scorpion. The scorpion knows only one thing and it does it even if it loses its own life. Negotiations with Egypt were possible because Anwar Sadat had achieved a victory of sorts in the Sinai in October 1973. Hamas achieved a victory of sorts when Israel pulled out of Gaza in August 2005. The one came to pray in Jerusalem and made peace, the other fires rockets onto Sderot.

But, I fear, the air assault (followed by a ground incursion?) will fail as well. Like Lebanon two summers ago, Hamas may be lulling Israel into its rope-a-dope strategy. We hit and hit and hit harder, exhausting ourselves; and they claim victory by not surrendering. Their intifada, when it comes, will provoke greater responses in an escalating progression of civilian deaths.

Israel has other choices beyond shock and awe. It might take the French suggestion of a two-day cease fire to see if Hamas will stop its assaults or it should return to targeted assassinations of Hamas leadership (and Hezbollah’s for that matter). We should abandon precision bombing because the bombing is never precise enough and because its collateral damage—both human and structural—is a provocative outrage.

An army uses the weapons it has, so Hamas uses rockets and will be using human bombs in Jerusalem and elsewhere, and it doesn’t care about the blow-back. We have planes, but we do care. We also have courage and intelligence. We have Mossad. (Gabriel Allon, where are you when we need you most?) Just as in that other old story, sometimes slow and steady wins the race. But trust the scorpion? Only if we have a death-wish.

Fanatics, Madoff: The worst of the Jewish community

We as a people, are as noble as the greatest tsadik, as low as the worst of our villains. (I remember my mother always breathing a sigh of relief when she knew for sure that a criminal was not, in fact, Jewish.) Between goniffs like Bernard Madoff and anti-Israel pro-Messianic religious fanatics in Hebron are we losing the legitimacy of our claim that we hold the moral high ground?
Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme cost Yeshiva University $110 million; Hadassah $90 million; the endowment fund of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington more than $10 million; the Jewish Funds for Justice $3.9 million; the Forward (that other Jewish newspaper) a mere $355,000. If you’ve been doing your arithmetic you’ll see I’ve accounted for less than 10% of the $50 billion he’s reputed to have embezzled (or vaporized as far as anyone can tell). When I read in the Times last Week of a rich man, one of Madoff’s Judas goats who brought him clients, and then followed Max Bialystock’s guiding principle until Bernie’s scheme bankrupted even him, I didn’t cry. Schadenfreude is one of my minor sins. But cheating Hadassah? Yeshiva University?
If all that weren’t bad enough, he’s also handed a loaded shotgun to those who already despise us and want to see us dead. Here’s a sample from a blog with the innocuous sounding name, “The Truth will set you free”:

“Madoff was elected chairman of the board of [Yeshiva Universty’s] Syms School of Business in 2000…Does the ‘Jewish tradition’ taught at Yeshiva U. support giant ‘Ponzi’ schemes like the one run by their chairman? Is this the kind of business they teach the students at Syms? Cheat the ‘goyim,’ i.e. non-Jews, and steal their money? That is exactly what the Talmud teaches, make no mistake about it. It is the main reason that Jews have been despised and expelled from so many nations throughout history. Anyone familiar with the teachings of the Talmud, i.e. ‘Jewish tradition,’ will know that such anti-Christian schemes are at the heart of such an ‘education.’ This is why so many of the financial criminals involved in the current Zionist-produced ‘credit crisis’ are Jewish Zionists who have been indoctrinated in such ‘Jewish traditions.’ The Zionist criminals involved in 9-11 and the cover-up of the truth are all tied to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, which is a similar Zionist institution.”

Thanks, Bernie, for letting slip the dogs of anti-Semitism; if this is the first step towards welcoming back the Middle Ages, to accusations of us using Christian blood to make our matzah, you can look to Bernie for inspiring it. Fascists of all stripes who would destroy the Jews are out there. Read further for another example.
Have your read Josephus’ The Jewish War, his history of the struggle between Jews and Romans that reached its crescendo with the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the suicides at Massada two years later? According to him, the slaughter of Jews in Jerusalem was by the Jewish zealots who objected to those Jews who would live amicably (if warily) with the Romans.
Earlier this month the Israeli Supreme Court ordered a disputed property in Hebron vacated until it could decide ownership. The army moved in, expelled the 200 or so zealots in occupation and then the fanatics went on a rampage—against Arabs. Their policy is called “Price Tag.” If the government wants to be conciliatory to Arabs, the price is these pogroms (not my term, nor the term of the Arab press, but one used by the Prime Minister of Israel). The hooligans shot Arab civilians, set fire to their homes, destroyed their crops and terrorized them. The Premier’s terminology sounds about right. He might also have called it an intifada.
Further to fan the flames of backlash, Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir, two of the Ayatollahs who urge the young on their destructive rampage and then attempt to justify it, threatened to march with their troops bearing 100 Israeli flags through the Arab city of Umm al-Fahm near Haifa. Their group? It has the evocative name of “The Jewish National Front,” a name which immediately brings to mind fascists in France, Britain and the United States who call themselves the National Front and want to impose racist policies on their reluctant homelands.
Were not the fascists of Europe enough for the world? Have we learned nothing? Lord, what fools these mortals be.

Nous sommes tous Chabad de Mumbai!

Nous sommes tous Américains!” Thus the headline on September 12, 2001, Le Monde’s declaration of French solidarity with America in its time of wrenching agony. Our civilians had been hijacked, forced to become part of inhuman missiles. The World Trade Center had been converted into two dusty tombs for thousands of innocents and 10 demented mass murderers; the Pentagon was hit a glancing blow and brave passengers died having revolted in the air attempting to re-take a fourth pirated plane.

The comparisons to events in Mumbai are overt. Here parallel towers, there parallel hotels; here the financial capital of the United States, there the financial capital of India; here warnings were ignored, there warnings from us were ignored; here they flew in from the sky, there they sailed in on boats; here they were well organized Arabs, there they were (it would seem) well organized Pakistanis; here our response was poorly organized—and so was theirs; here president Bush’s term was beginning, now it is ending, bookending tragedy; here there was shock and anger, there there was shock and anger.

But there is one substantial difference. Jews. In the New York tragedy the murders let it be thought that the whole thing was an Israeli plot. Jews didn’t report to work that day, because they had been tipped off. Only the deliberately stupid believed the calumny. This time Jews were a target, perhaps for all we know the target, the other assaults mere diversions. Chabad Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, 29, and his 28-year-old pregnant wife, Rivka, were killed, though the couple's son, Moshe survived after his nanny, Sandra Samuel escaped with him 10 hours after the hostage incident started. There is intense pressure to declare Miss Samuel a “righteous among the gentiles”. No less significant, though often over looked are 50-year-old Norma Shvarzblat Rabinovich of Mexico, Yocheved Orpaz, 60, who was traveling in India, Bentzion Chroman, 28, and 38-year-old Leibish Teitelbaum who were all killed as well—not in the cross fire, not with a spray of machine gun fire, but tortured to death in ways I cannot describe because I cannot know them. First the Indian coroner and later Israeli Zaka (Orthodox Jews who help to collect body parts after terrorist attacks in Israel) felt compelled to leave the room where the bodies were found, appalled by what they saw. As I write, two other Jews are in critical condition.

At about 2:00 on that pleasant Thanksgiving Day, Chabad rabbi Joshua Laufer called. He was trying to organize a prayer service for the hostages. I asked “What time?” and he said “4:40.” Our company was due at 4:30. But I said that we’d pray at home. As family and our guests sat at our groaning table, I distributed yarmulkes and asked my son, a fifth year cantorial student, to lead us in a prayer for hostages. He chanted Psalm 130 in Hebrew and then translated it: a truncated version follows:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
Oh Lord, hear my cry!
Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
It is He who will redeem Israel from all their iniquities.

But while I heard those words of supplication, I was thinking others about the Deccan Mujahideen or Lashkar-e-Taiba or whoever it was that decided to slaughter innocent men, women, and children. It’s from another Psalm, number 94, not one of my favorites, normally, but parts of it seemed more than appropriate at the time: “God of retribution, Lord, God of retribution, appear! Rise up, judge of the earth, give the arrogant their deserts! How long shall the wicked exult, shall they utter insolent speech, shall all evildoers vaunt themselves? They crush your people, O Lord, they afflict Your very own; they kill the widow and the stranger; they murder the fatherless, thinking, ‘The Lord does not see it, the God of Jacob does not pay heed.’ Take heed, you most brutish people; fools—when will you get wisdom? Shall He who implants the ear not hear, He who forms the eye not see?”

The previous Shabbat the young Mumbai rabbi had been talking about the humane slaughter of animals Jewish law demands. The irony? Jews slaughter animals humanely, but the animals of the Deccan Mujahideen slaughter Jewish human beings by torturing them to death. “God of retribution, Lord, God of retribution, appear! Rise up, Judge of the earth, give the arrogant their deserts!”

Nous sommes tous Chabad de Mumbai!

A History Lesson: One we hope won't be repeated

Last Shabbat I was reminded of how American and how Jewish I am. In schul we read of the death of Sarah, first of the matriarchs. We also commemorated the 45th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Ask any person of a certain age (my age) if they remember where they were and you will get a stream of reminiscence. I was just coming out of an art history exam, thinking about going home for Thanksgiving; I overheard a couple of other students talking about presidents elected in years ending in zero dying in office and wondered why they were bandying about that old chestnut. Moments later I knew.

In my lifetime’s memory, I can’t think of a better, certainly not a more inspiring president than JFK whose words were eloquent, whose public actions were on the mark, whose wife added grace and charm to the stodginess of Washington. If things work out as we hope they will, now my children will have the experience of a Kennedy-like president in the White House—a man whose words are eloquent, whose public actions are on the mark, whose wife will add grace and charm to the stodginess of Washington.

At our house we commemorate the mournful event in Dallas as we always do, with song and quotation. We began with a toast made over Jameson Irish whisky, and sang,

“Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must abide.

One guest rose to recite a line from Edward Everett, the other speaker at the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery and now inscribed on the Rhode Island World War II monument. “No lapse of time, no distance of space, shall cause you to be forgotten.” Then, unbidden lines from a poem I’d memorized in 7th grade came to mind. It’s from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Decoration Day” a stanza of which seemed appropriate. From Jameson affected mind to quivering lips it passed, including this stanza:

Rest, comrade, rest and sleep!
The thoughts of men shall be,
As sentinels to keep
Your rest, from danger, free.

I don’t know if this will resonate with many, but two historical events, I hope not precedents, intrude into my mind with nightmare vividness. Briefly in 1618 there was a king and queen of Bohemia, Frederick and his English wife Elizabeth who were of the same lofty plane as the Kennedys and the Obamas. So gracious were they, so open to the arts and sciences that this so-called Winter King—for so brief was his reign—was a foretaste of last century’s Prague Spring. But as in 1968, so in 1619 the forces of repressive reaction drove them from Prague and restored unimaginative conformity, while simultaneously ushering in the Thirty Years’ War. Another historical model: The Gracchi, two brothers in second century BCE Rome, children of wealth and privilege who objected to the outsourcing of jobs (importation of slaves) and importing of cheap products (grain which came virtually free into Rome from conquered provinces) and the displacement of the small farmers who could not compete, their lands snatched up by wealthy aristocrats for a song to grow not wheat but olives and grapes—and then when there was no Italian grain the price of the imported stuff went sky high. The Gracchi sought to curb these abuses by, yes, by spreading the wealth, by limiting the size of the great estates and restoring to the displaced farmers new lands confiscated from those who had taken advantage of their poverty in the first place. Naturally the forces of law and order (yes, Virginia, I am being sarcastic) took matters into their own hands and both brothers in their turn were brutally assassinated. John and Bobby were their modern day counterparts. Those who know me know that I don’t actually pray. Usually. But this I do pray—that the Secret Service does its job. The brothers Gracchi and Kennedy were sacrifices enough.

As you read this, Thanksgiving will have been and gone. I hope it, the quintessential New England holiday, the holiday that doesn’t exclude Jews was a joyous one. Already we are being bombarded with Christmas music and decorations, but with the economy so bad and getting worse, who can blame retailers for rushing the season. So, in that spirit, though to me as I write this it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, Happy Hannukah to all, and to all a good 2009.

The Party

On Tuesday we woke early hoping to beat the crowd at the Francis J. Varieur Elementary School where we vote. By the time I arrived it was necessary to stand beyond the outer door—on a beautiful autumn morning, chatting companionably with neighbors and strangers. Promptly at 7:00 we were allowed into the gym; I stood on the R-Z line, took my ballot, walked to an open booth and completed broken arrows with a felt-tipped pen. I voted for the Irish guy—O’Bama, (I was number 37 that morning to cast my vote) and left the building at 7:15. Feeling patriotically uplifted I drove to school where the pro-McCain people were dourly looking at the latest polls, wondering if they could hold the states W. took in ’04 while the pro-Barack throng nervously asked of each other, “How will they steal it from us this time?”

The rest of the day dragged on and on and on and on. Finally it was time to go home to the hopefully celebratory party we’d arranged for some friends, fifteen of us, armed with polling statistics and as each state was reported we checked to see if it was expected for this candidate or that. We ate and swigged and ate some more, occasionally engorging something recognizable as part of a legitimate food group other than chazerie. Swing states were coming in remarkably slowly. Finally Pennsylvania was awarded to Barack, greeted by whoops and a hollers and shouts of “That’s it, that’s it,” to which others said, nervously, “No, not yet, let’s not put a kenyna hura on this.” But then Ohio was reported solidly in Barack’s camp! By the time the networks proclaimed the winner, shortly after 11:00, we had just heard that Virginia, where my son Sam had been working on the campaign since the summer, had come in for Obama.

We cheered, popped the corks off bottles of champagne, and spontaneously burst into song—first “God Bless America/Land that I love/Stand beside her, and guide her/Thru the night with a light from above./From the mountains, to the prairies/To the oceans, white with foam…../God bless America/My home sweet home” and then a modified version of a song that had been going through my head all day—“We have overcome/We have overcome/We have overcome, today/Oh, deep in my heart/I did believe/We would overcome, someday.” We drank to our healths, and to Obama’s, and to the health of the United States. We felt as though America had done something good and noble that day. Tears flowed as freely as the bubbly. I called Sam and shouted into his voicemail, “You did it, you did it, you did it!” My wife and three others in the room took credit for New Hampshire, the swing state they drove up to last weekend to knock on doors and speak to undecideds. It was a wonderful night. Those of us who proudly call ourselves liberals know that we’ll face our comeupance in some future election, but tonight was ours and we savored the feeling of triumph.

McCain made a graciouis and conciliatory concession speech, but I was bothered by two things—while the Democrats had planned their victory party out in the park and open to all, the Republicans met in an exclusive hotel (I’ve seen it; it’s gorgeous) by invitation only. (Someone at my house commented that this was a microcosm of the difference between the parties.) The other grouse was in his reflection that “This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.” But as I heard these words I immediately thought, “and white people too.” Without an overwhelming number of people of European descent voting for Obama, this political miracle could not have taken place. It was a multi-racial victory, a victory for America, not a victory for black people only. We did this thing also. My pro-McCain students are proud to have been alive when America broke the color barrier—they just wish the black man had different policies. I’m glad he doesn’t.

And so, we enter a new era. Both McCain and Obama made the same point. It’s time to put the bitterness behind and to work together instead to solve the myriad problems that confront the nation. In a way, winning the election was the easy part; now comes the tough work of reconstructing a viable economy and finding Osama bin Laden, hidden in his cave, so long ignored.

Election is not a choice between good and evil

In a few days we will have a choice between young and old; Keynesian trickle up, and supply side/trickle down; between a Harvard Law Magna Cum Laude and a Naval Academy legacy who graduated 894th out of a class of 899. One wants to discontinue the war in Iraq, the other wants to fight on (and on and on) until victory. Both men are honorable at their cores; this is not a Zoroastrian contest between good and evil; each has erred and is willing to admit it.

We have the opportunity, 45 years after Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech to put a black man in the White House. Just think of that. In August 1963 Dr. King referred to Negroes as victims of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality, their bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, not being able to gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. Their basic mobility could be only from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. Their children were stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. “We will not be satisfied,” he thundered magisterially, “until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

That time is almost here. America now treats its African American citizens with the dignity they deserve. Hillary Clinton’s supporters were convinced that it was a woman’s turn to be president, and they were almost right. The representative of the other oppressed group won the day this time. There will be a woman president elected; it is a consummation devoutly to be wished—but apparently it’s the black man’s turn first. I can’t explain it; I don’t justify it, but it is. We cannot turn away from the opportunity to elevate America, to make King’s dream and ours, a reality.

Anticipating losing, McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin or their surrogates have begun to hurl charges at Obama. “He’s a Socialist!” In fact, he’s not, nor is it illegal. I’ve just checked the Constitution. “He’s a Muslim!” In fact, he’s not, and it’s not illegal. I’ve just checked the Constitution, again. “He attended Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20+ years!” Yes, that’s true, but it’s neither illegal nor relevant. McCain deserted his wife for his paramour 20 years ago. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the approach to the economy; what matters is inspiring hope in a forlorn nation. John McCain, for all his service to the nation, is of the past; he would have made a terrific candidate in 2000 but of the four candidates running, surely it will be he to whom America first tearfully bids heartfelt thanks for his life and career. And then we’d get Sarah Palin. She wasn’t McCane’s first choice; Lieberman was, but the party bosses reined in their maverick and so he picked Palin, a woman with whom he’d had a total of three hours of conversation. When he was forced to give in and accept the inevitable “he was furious,” according to one of his advisors as quoted in the October 27th New Yorker. “He was pissed. It wasn’t what he wanted.” It’s not what any reasonable person wants—just ask conservative columnists David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer and George Will, all of whom have rejected her as presidential. And yet if the old man wins and dies, she’s who we get.

McCain suffers from Stockholm Syndrome. In 1973 hostages taken in an aborted bank robbery, held captive for six days, actually tried to help the robbers when the police finally broke in and afterwards refused to testify against them. Back in 2000 McCain was running for the Republican Party’s nomination against Governor George Bush. After losing badly in Iowa he beat him in New Hampshire and Carl Rove’s gloves came off. The people of South Carolina were bombarded with innuendo and out-right lies that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black baby. Illogically enough he was simultaneously branded a “fag” in flyers sent to churches. In South Carolina, remember! He went down to defeat then, and what is he doing now? Adopting the techniques of his captors. Lies and innuendos, the same sort of thing that cost him 2000. A McCain rally in North Carolina began with this introduction—not by the candidate himself—“Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God.” People in Ohio were told that Obama didn’t go to Hawaii to be with his ailing grandmother but to destroy evidence that he’s not really an American citizen. It’s a pity; McCain’s not a bad man; he’s just a man behaving badly. Desperation will do that to some people.